Stephanie Coontz writes in an opinion piece for The New York Times: “This week is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s international best seller, ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ which has been widely credited with igniting the women’s movement of the 1960s. Readers who return to this feminist classic today are often puzzled by the absence of concrete political proposals to change the status of women. But ‘The Feminine Mystique’ had the impact it did because it focused on transforming women’s personal consciousness.”